Growing Together
by Choleen
Summary: Post Mockingjay / pre-epilogue interpretation of how Katniss and Peeta grew together.  Please review.


Growing Together – enhanced ending for Mocking Jay

interpretation of how Katniss and Peeta grew together at the end of Mocking Jay

As Peeta and I work on our memory book, I get the same feeling as when we worked on my family's plant book...that it is the only normal thing we do together. It's not normal, of course, to go through the lives of loved ones you lost and be able to fill a book at the age of 18. I stare at Peeta from across the kitchen table as he sketches the morphling form District 6 that saved his life in the Quarter Quell. I am once again mesmerized by his long eyelashes. This time, when he looks up to catch me staring at him, his lashes are damp and his eyes glisten with tears. Looking at the page he's drawn, I can barely recognize the woman. He didn't draw the woman dying from the monkey muttation attack. He didn't even draw the vacant girl who was left wasted and emaciated from years of morphling addiction. He drew her as she was before the games, or would have been if there had been no games. She is beautiful, with long light brown hair, blueish green eyes and full cheeks.

"What was her name?" I ask, as I am sure Peeta took the time to find out.

"Choleen" he says as he manages a smile.

The games comes back to me in a flood of horrible memories. "I wanted to run, but her grip was so tight", I confess.

Peeta takes the seat next to me, "but you didn't".

"But I wanted to, I didn't want to watch her die. I didn't want to hold her hand", I say emphatically and then drop my head in shame.

Peeta lifts my chin up and stares in to my eyes and says quietly "But you didn't. Katniss, you stayed and comforted her, just like you did with Rue"

It was nothing like when Rue died. She was one of the first people I saw die, one of the first entries in our book. Since then, I've cared nothing for the dying, except maybe Prim. I just left Boggs to die in the Capitol and abandoned Finnick after blowing him and the lizard mutts to bits. They weren't comforted.

I simply say "You were the one that comforted her". He just looks up as if he's not convinced this has any value. I add, "That's what I love about you." I catch myself as he registers what I just said and quickly add, "you eased her out of her pain so she could die peacefully."

"As you held her hand" Peeta simply says as he stares reassuringly into my eyes.

I think back to that moment as he caressed Choleen's hair and spoke to her about colors and paints, a passion they share. I can' help but think that if there were different circumstances that Peeta would fall in love with her and I feel jealous and ashamed. Not that he's in love with me anymore. I knew that from the moment he said "I must have loved you a lot" back at the district 13 hospital ward. His meaning was clear. His love was in the past.

Peeta goes back to his chair and adds a little flower on one of Choleen's cheeks. A reminder of the flower she painted on his cheek with her own blood.

I wake up frightened, going back to that place in my mind that relives the games and the war every night and then I look up and see Peeta's face so close to mine. At first, I am disoriented, but soon realize that he is carrying me up to my bed. I must have fallen asleep at the table watching him sketch in our book. As he carries me to bed, I get a sense of his arms, so strong around me. I haven't felt those arms hold me in so long. As he lays me on my bed, I want to say "stay with me" but I don't. I move over to make sure he sees that there is room for him. But he just squeezes my hand and says "It'll be alright, Katniss. Go back to sleep. You'll be safe". Then he leaves.

In my dreams, I relive all the times I lost Peeta. Him lying in the mud half dead, the flowing blood as I remove the arrow that was used for his tourniquet, the moment I realized I lost the boy with the bread when I confessed that my love for him was a sham, the time his heart stopped in the Quarter Quell and when our reunion in 13 turned out to be a nightmare that I still can't get out of. I even dream about the time I shut him out of my room at the training center because of the teasing. I wish I could go back and have more time with him, the old him, the one that was in love with me.

As I recover from my mental disorientation and Peeta learns to live with his altered memories, we have grown closer, but not the same. I'm too consumed with the past and Peeta's too busy sorting out his memories. Johanna's right. We've all changed and it's never going to be the way it was.

I wake up sobbing at the thought and hear him come into my room. He grabs my hand and I pull him in to my bed. He resists, but eventually he lays down beside me to hold me. I fall back asleep in his arms.

When I wake, he asks, "No nightmares?"

"Not after you came in. How about you?", I say.

"I didn't really sleep." That's when I know I've lost him for good. He used to sleep so soundly next to me. Being with me reassured him, but now my presence is of no comfort. "I didn't want to...", he adds.

"Aren't you tired?', I ask.

"Yes, I'm very tired but I'm afraid." After a long pause, he adds "afraid I'll have those memories, the shiny ones, and that if you're here with me" he puts his head in his hands "I just can't bear the thought"

I shift so that his head is in my arms and say "I'll stay up this time. You go to sleep" .

"No, Katniss, I can't" he hesitates.

I lift his head up and meet his clear blue eyes and say "you know I can take care of myself "

Peeta wakes with a start, looks up at me intensely and eventually smiles. "No nightmares?" I ask.

"No nightmares" he replies. We lie there silently, not knowing what to say to each other. We are getting back to what I think of as normal, holding each other, comforting each other, loving each other? I can't help but hope that's what it is.

He continues to stare at the ceiling and simply says "I love you". I turn to him and it feels like an eternity, but when he turns to face me, he reaches out to wipe a tear streaming down my cheek. He leans in to touch his lips to mine and there it is again. That feeling, that burning, that hunger. As we press our lips together, I can't help but think that we won't be stopped, there is no need to stop. As I let the warm sensation consume me, I feel his hands caress my body. And I feel my leg reach over his. Then we stop kissing and hug each other so tightly we can barely breathe. He distances himself a little and says "You love me. Real or not real?".

I say "real" and take his lips again, deeper, warmer. The intensity behind his eyes is back, but it is not frightening, it is exciting. His passion guides him to my neck where he starts kissing softly and then as if he wants to devour me. I reply in kind, devouring his skin, ripping off his shirt and mine. I lose myself as we make love. I think of nothing but the two of us as it should be, in each others arms and in each others hearts.

By the time we get out of bed, it is almost noon. We walk down to the kitchen hand in hand. It's Greasy Sae's day off today, so Peeta starts to make breakfast. Haymitch knocks at the door, and then just walks right in when he sees us. He asks Peeta "where's the bread this morning? " Peeta doesn't answer and turns away, back to making breakfast. Just as Haymitch is about to sit down, I give him a look that I'm sure he knows means "not now". He simply looks at Peeta, then looks at me. He smiles and says "You could do a lot worse, sweetheart."

He ignores my dirty looks and sits down even though he knows I want to be alone with Peeta. We still think alike so he knows what I know. That Peeta and I will have a lifetime to be with each other.


End file.
